


All These Years

by Sekiraku



Series: Salt Gods [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, Gentle Sex, M/M, Old Friends, Oral Sex, Playful Sex, Rimming, Smut, Teasing, Tender Sex, Vampire Sex, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sekiraku/pseuds/Sekiraku
Summary: Felix has been eyeing Antony all night, and Antony is more than happy to reciprocate his old friend's interest.
Relationships: Antony/Felix
Series: Salt Gods [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642624
Comments: 16
Kudos: 21





	All These Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LurKingFisher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LurKingFisher/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sacrifice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21340168) by [Sekiraku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sekiraku/pseuds/Sekiraku). 



> It feels weird to give smut as a gift... but here we are. Lurk had expressed interest in sexy make-ups between Antony and Felix, so here is an encounter between the two of them at some unspecified point before the events of the series.

It was a lovely clear night, perfect for moving around the deck and socializing, which was exactly what Antony and his crew were all doing. Antony was finding it a little difficult to concentrate on his conversation with Messalina, however. Felix had been giving him _looks_ all night. Lingering, heated looks. Looks that had Antony preening and posing and swaying his hips as he moved.

When Antony had first seen him, so many centuries before, Felix had been a terribly gawky boy. He’d had a tall frame and enormous hands, but he hadn’t yet grown into them and so the effect had been almost ghoulish. It would have been ghoulish, anyhow, if Felix hadn’t been so painfully shy and awestruck all the time.

Memories from before the curse were hazy, slippery things. Antony’s senses had been so much duller then that to reach back now felt like trying to remember a dream. But certain moments stuck out clear and sharp, often for no apparent reason, and one of these was his meeting with Felix.

Antony had been hardly more than a boy himself at the time. In his memory, it seemed like only a day or two before that meeting that he’d stopped leading his siblings and Theo in wild chase games in his mother’s little courtyard and started dragging them to watch the palace guards at their practice. He hadn’t quite made the connection in his mind yet between the desire that grownups and books talked about and the stirring he felt when he watched Marcus, the young recruit that the head of the King’s Guard, old Fabia, had taken as her second.

Felix, clearly some years younger even than Antony himself, had inspired no such stirrings with his lanky frame. He had been all elbows and knees as he ran and exercised. However, even though his own lessons in swordsmanship were given privately, Antony could tell that the bony boy was easily leading the pack.

Felix had handily beaten the others near his age in combat drills as well. Antony had been distracted from his mooning over Marcus long enough to join Claudia and Titus in noisy cheers as Felix dropped a much bigger, older opponent, then helped him up with a string of apologies and praises for his skill.

When the recruits had their next break, Felix came loping over to the fence to meet his admirers. He seemed shy, but eager to make friends in his strange new environment.

“Hullo,” he’d said, and even the one word had been rich and heavy with a rural accent that Antony’s courtly ears had never before heard. “I’m Felix. Who’re you?”

Antony had easily taken the lead, as he always did back then. “I’m Antony. This is my sister Claudia, my brother Titus, and our friend Theodora. You’re awfully good!”

Felix had dropped his gaze and kicked a little at the fenceposts. “Nah, not much to say about me. Got lucky ‘s all.”

His voice was loud even when he was being bashful, Antony remembered.

“That’s a lot of times to get lucky in a row,” Claudia had observed, and Felix’s blush had crept up over his ears, which stuck out from his head like handles at the time.

“Are you going to be in the King’s Guard?” Titus had demanded.

Antony had half-expected Felix to get annoyed- would he be training with them if he wasn’t?- but he had just smiled kindly at the younger boy.

“That’s what they tell me!” he’d said cheerfully. “I’m pretty lucky, me! And what do you do? Are you servants here?”

“They don’t have to do much,” Theo had said, speaking for the first time. “Their father’s the king.”

Felix had gone pale and started to bow, then changed his mind halfway through and knelt instead. He’d almost hit his head on the fencepost. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

“It’s all right!” Titus had said earnestly. “We’re bastards! We hardly even count!”

Antony thought that the pang he’d felt when he heard his tiny brother say that in his innocent little voice was probably the reason he’d remembered the afternoon for a thousand years.

Titus’ words hadn’t done much to reduce Felix’s awe, however. Even though they continued to seek each other out when Antony came to sigh over Marcus, eventually becoming friends, Felix never quite lost that awe. The years passed. Felix rose through the ranks until he was Marcus’ second, and he was one of a handful of people that Antony trusted enough to invite to his wedding… but he always refused to call Antony anything other than ‘Your Highness.’

Until the night of the curse, anyhow. That night had brought all manner of barriers crashing down, even as it set others in place forever.

Now, so many hundreds of years later, Felix bore scant resemblance to that gawky boy. His frame had filled in, his shoulders broadened, his arms thickened with swells of muscle that balanced his big hands. He had certainly grown into the sort of person that Antony didn’t mind being ogled by one bit.

Once he managed to disentangle himself from Messalina, Antony moved across the deck to where Felix was standing. The bigger man was leaning on the railing, seemingly watching nothing but the moonlight on the water, but he greeted Antony without turning his head.

“You look lovely tonight, Antony,” he said.

His voice was so soft these days, but Antony’s supernatural hearing picked it up easily enough. He came to lean next to Felix, close enough that their elbows brushed.

“I’m sentimental tonight as well,” he confessed. “I was just remembering when we met. You were so nervous!”

Felix raised a brow. “I never had your courtly training, but I think the usual response to a compliment is, ‘Thank you, you look quite ravishing yourself.’”

“Oh, _ravishing,_ are you?” Antony laughed, drawing a smirk to Felix’s face.

“If that’s what you want, my lord, then all you have to do is ask,” he purred.

Antony’s laugh died away and he felt himself stirring in his trousers. Fuck, what was he, fourteen? He was much too old to be this aroused by a heated look and low tone.

It didn’t help that the heated gaze hadn’t abated. Felix was looking down at him in that _way_ he had, those big dark eyes seeing only him. Even back when he’d been a king’s son, few things had made Antony feel as much like royalty as Felix’s gaze.

“If not a ravishing, then perhaps a kiss?” Felix suggested, and Antony’s lips had fallen open and his head tilted back before the other man had even finished speaking.

Felix kissed with the careful consideration he showed in everything, the same deliberation that would have driven Antony mad had they been lovers. He went slowly and projected every movement, as if he wanted to allow Antony the space to startle away from him.

His lips brushed over Antony’s, soft as a breeze. They brushed again, then caught on his lower lip and pressed ever so slightly. His hands skimmed Antony’s hips, his arms, his shoulders, before settling delicately to cradle his face. Only then did he open his own lips to the demanding press of Antony’s tongue.

Antony had been about to complain that Felix was being too careful, Antony wasn’t one of his precious humans, but the words were lost to the soft movements of Felix’s mouth. How was anyone supposed to keep their thoughts about them when Felix’s lips worked so cleverly?

Then Felix gave his lower lip the lightest little nip, and Antony’s thoughts deserted him entirely.

They went on kissing. Felix’s hands moved gently over Antony’s cheeks and neck, stroking and exploring. For his part, Antony simply planted his hands on the bigger man’s ass and squeezed the firm flesh.

There weren’t many forces that could have drawn Antony away from Felix’s sweet mouth. Cloelia’s bellow was one of them.

“All right, you two! Take it belowdecks!”

Antony reluctantly untangled himself to glower over his shoulder. “Mind your own business!”

“Come on,” Felix urged, grabbing Antony’s hand and dropping a quick kiss on his knuckles. “My bed’s softer than the deck anyway. Assuming you’ve changed your mind about the ravishing?”

“You convinced me,” Antony said, feeling an unusual grin stretching his cheeks. “You may carry me off and ravish me at your leisure.”

A quick, mischievous twinkle in Felix’s eye was Antony’s only warning before the bigger man clasped his arms around his neck and launched himself into Antony’s arms.

“Shouldn’t _you_ carry _me_ off for ravishing, my lord?” Felix simpered. “The worldly older man…”

“Older? We’re over a thousand. I hardly think it matters at this point.”

“Fine then. The experienced royal and the naïve, virginal farmers’ boy…”

Antony snorted as he steadied the unexpected burden in his arms. “Virginal. Right.”

Felix’s laughter was one thing that hadn’t changed. No matter how he softened his speaking voice, his laugh stayed loud and deep. Antony felt as if he were carrying a thunderstorm in his arms.

Antony couldn’t help laughing as well as he toted his prize down the stairs, trailed by good-natured hooting from the rest of the vampires. Every time he was close to calming down, he thought of the picture they must make- big, broad Felix with his ass almost dragging on the boards and his legs sticking out to the side, fluttering his lashes and making exaggerated doe eyes at Antony- and then he was off again, giggling helplessly at their ridiculousness.

Once they reached Felix’s room he was kind enough to open the door, though he refused to alight from Antony’s arms.

“I am being carried off to be ravished,” he insisted. “It’s no good if you don’t toss me on the bed. Have you no respect for tradition?”

“No.” But Antony still carried him through the sitting room and tossed him onto his bed.

He wondered about closing the bedroom door, but he didn’t think Felix had an attendant at the moment. Surely he would have mentioned something if he did? A quick glance confirmed that the door to the hallway was shut, so Antony stopped worrying about it and returned his attention to his partner.

Felix was lying where he’d been thrown. Antony rolled his eyes at the smirk on his face.

“There. Are you satisfied now?”

“Oh, not at all.” Felix’s hands went to the buttons of his shirt and started undoing them in quick, careful movements. “I was promised a ravishing.”

“That’s where your luck runs out,” Antony said, setting to work on the buttons of his sleeve. “I didn’t promise anything. _You’re_ topping.”

“Anto- _ny._ You _never_ fuck me! _”_

Even as he whined, Felix left his own shirt half-undone and scooted to the edge of the bed. He swatted Antony’s hands gently away and began undoing his buttons himself.

“If you wanted to get fucked, you shouldn’t have had such a nice cock,” Antony informed him.

Felix grumbled. “I was hardly consulted in the matter.”

“Are you really complaining about fucki- _ah!”_

Antony’s voice choked off as Felix, having unhooked the last button on his left sleeve, dropped his head and suckled at the exposed wrist. It was a small thing to wring a gasp from someone who’d lived so long and dabbled in every indulgence and debauchery, but…

“Come _on,”_ Antony groaned, yanking at his other sleeve and sending a button skittering into some corner of the room. “Hurry up!”

“Why?” Felix seized his other hand and started undoing the remaining buttons at the same leisurely pace.

Antony’s dick had a few good reasons why, beginning with the painful way it was starting to strain against his trousers. Still, Felix refused to be hurried.

He finished undoing Antony’s buttons, but when Antony scrabbled for the hem of his shirt, Felix gripped the fabric and held it in place until Antony gave up with a frustrated groan and let him do as he wished.

What Felix wished, apparently, was to slide his big hands under the fabric and push it up maddeningly slowly, stopping to kiss and nibble at every bit of Antony’s exposed skin. He was skilled with his lips, his tongue, his teeth, but it was the moments when he would cast those big dark delighted eyes up at Antony that really undid the smaller man. Felix looked so _thrilled,_ like there was nothing in the world more worth looking at than Antony’s tiny frame and little paunch and constellation of scars.

With some partners, Antony felt shy about his scars. Julia looked them over like she was cataloging them. Porcia seemed repulsed by them and shrank away from touching any of the raised flesh. Thaddeus was careful and overly tender with them, as if they could possibly still pain Antony after all these centuries. In his one regrettable encounter with Theo, she’d just looked unbearably sad when she saw them.

Felix never made him feel shy. Now, he kissed the scars with the same languid sweetness he had lavished on Antony’s wrists. He even slid his tongue along the largest one, the one that had mangled Antony’s navel. His mouth might have been as cold as Antony’s, but the touches still felt searing.

He traveled up Antony’s body so slowly that the smaller man felt like he would vibrate right out of his skin with impatience. Why did Felix have to be this way about _everything?_ Antony opened his mouth to complain, but Felix saw the movement and quick as a flash, that clever mouth was on Antony’s nipple, and all the words rushed right out of Antony’s head.

Maybe they had gone to his cock, like all the borrowed blood in his veins was doing. It was fully hard now, and he rutted hopelessly against whatever bits of Felix’s chest and shoulder were close enough to grant him a little friction.

“Easy,” his partner said around his nipple, “there’s no rush. I want to take my time with this gorgeous body of yours.”

Antony gave a hiss that he hoped would serve to evince his displeasure with the idea. Felix just chuckled against his skin and carried on at his own glacial pace.

After what felt like another hundred years, Antony’s shirt was finally off. Felix’s own clothes disappeared much more quickly, and then he was reaching for Antony’s trousers. Instead of undoing them, however, he mouthed at Antony’s straining erection right through the fabric.

 _“Felix,”_ Antony whined.

Those huge eyes lifted to his again, gleaming once more with that spark of mischief. “If you really hated it, you could have taken them off yourself. I wasn’t stopping you.”

Antony could hardly argue with that. He stood still and quivered under Felix’s expert mouth and hands until, at last, the final stitch of his clothing lay crumpled on the floor.

He moved forward, but Felix stopped him with a gentle hand on each hip.

“Wait,” his partner breathed, “just let me look at you for a moment.”

 _Now_ Antony was shy. Felix’s admiring gaze pricked at him like insect bites, and he squirmed and shifted like a teenager under it. The man was just so damnably sincere in his appreciation. Life at court had taught Antony many things, but not how to handle sincerity.

“All right, I’m sorry, you don’t have to scowl like that,” Felix said at last, releasing Antony’s hips. “You do know that if I ask you to do something you don’t want, you can just tell me no?”

“Of course I know that,” Antony growled. He shoved past Felix, crawled up the bed, and leaned down on his elbows so his ass was exposed. “Now come on, by the time you actually get around to fucking me my hair will be gray.”

Felix laughed at that, as Antony had intended, and he could relax again.

His relaxation was short-lived. The mattress dipped under him as Felix shuffled over and continued his campaign to kiss every bit of Antony’s skin, no matter how much the smaller man squirmed and complained. His fingers traced up and down Antony’s thighs, his mouth trailed sweet, maddening heat over the sensitive flesh of his ass… and then he was lapping at Antony’s hole, and all Antony could do was whine and clutch the sheets.

“Felix, _fuck,_ please, would you just _hurry_ I need you in me and you’re _killing me_ and…”

The probing tongue drew back. “Why are you in such a rush? Can’t you just take a breath and savor the moment?”

“I will savor the moments when your dick is in me!” Antony panted.

“Not if we don’t prep you, you won’t.” With that, Felix returned to his previous activities.

The rimjob went on for several more minutes, then Felix rolled off the bed and padded to his washroom to retrieve his oil. Antony stayed where he was, kneeling and shaking and scrambling to get some kind of hold on himself. _Remember how silly he used to look. Remember the way his ears stuck out. Remember-_

When Felix’s oil-slicked finger started teasing his entrance, Antony forgot he was trying to remember anything.

After another agonizing eternity, the finger was withdrawn and replaced with two of them, coiled together to make their intrusion easier to bear. Even when Felix began carefully scissoring him open, it wasn’t _enough_ and Antony had to bite his own lip hard to keep from spitting and swearing at his maddening partner.

“All right,” Felix said at last. “That should be enough.”

Antony wanted to stay exactly where he was and demand that Felix fucking _fuck_ him already, but his conscience was beginning to prick at him. Felix had spent so much time on him… it would have been churlish to simply take his pleasure from his friend without expending any effort of his own.

It took some willpower, but Antony clambered up to his knees and turned to face his surprised partner.

“All right,” he managed, “you had your fun. My turn.”

A light push sent Felix sprawling obligingly on his back on the bed. Antony was gratified to see that all Felix’s teasing had not left his partner unaffected- his long, thin cock was standing hard, and Antony could see the wonderful leftward curve that made it so delightful to ride.

Not just yet, though. Maybe a little of Felix’s damnable patience had rubbed off on him. Antony pushed Felix’s thighs apart and shuffled in between them.

“Come on, hips up,” he demanded, and felt that his patience was being rewarded when Felix’s pupils blew wide and he let out a tremulous moan.

There was an intimacy and a power about knowing someone’s favorite position, Antony reflected as he wedged his knees under his partner’s hips. However, he didn’t have Felix’s patience. With only a pause to wet his fingers and set them to work on Felix’s nipples, he hunched over and swallowed down Felix’s dick.

It was an awkward position. His arms were short enough that he had to extend them fully to reach Felix’s chest, leaving him simultaneously stretched and bent into a crescent. However, it was hard to mind the awkwardness when he finally had Felix gasping and keening helplessly under him.

_Are you savoring the moment **now,** you big gorgeous bastard?_

“Antony,” Felix finally said, his voice faltering and wavering in a very satisfying way, “I can’t… you need to stop!”

“Hmmmmm?” Antony hummed deliberately around Felix’s cock, drawing a distinctly sob-like sound from his partner.

“Do you want me in you or not?” Felix managed after a second.

Antony had to concede that he did. He pulled back, wriggled out from under Felix’s hips, then clambered on top of him.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to slow down and savor the moment?” he couldn’t help asking.

The jab was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was already guiding Felix’s dick to his entrance. Felix didn’t bother responding, instead taking Antony’s own cock in his practiced hand.

Antony looked down at his partner’s face as he worked himself down the wonderfully crooked phallus. It was always one of the things he liked best about their encounters- seeing serene Felix come undone. The steadiness and confidence Felix had gained over the centuries always cracked away, just a little, and granted Antony a rare glimpse of the passion the bigger man worked so hard to keep in check.

The first time they’d been together like this, it had been like all the encounters on the ship back then: shattered people digging for some of their lost pieces in each other’s bodies. It had also been terribly fumbling and awkward. Now, however, there was a sweetness to the ease with which they came together that gave Antony an unexpected pang. It truly felt like a meeting of old friends- their minds, their bodies, their histories, themselves.

It was all so wonderfully familiar. Felix knew just where to thrust to make Antony wail with pleasure, and Antony knew just how to rock his hips to make Felix release a choked stream of the profanities he rarely used outside of his bed. Perhaps it was strange to think of sex as ‘considerate,’ but Antony didn’t know any better word for the care with which they guided each other towards orgasm.

Antony broke first. Felix’s attentions to his cock combined with an especially well-aimed thrust, and he was coming with a high, stuttering moan. Felix moaned as well and stroked him through his climax, only stopping when Antony batted him weakly away with a limp hand.

After all his partner’s teasing, the pleasure and relief were dizzying. Antony slumped for a moment, taking unnecessary breaths and letting himself recover.

When he opened his eyes, Felix was regarding him with a tender smile, only a little strained.

“How are you doing?” Felix managed. “Are you done? I could finish with my hand if you’re too sensitive. Or we-”

Antony glared down at him and resumed rocking his hips in answer. He _was_ a little sensitive, if he was being honest with himself, but the overstimulation was its own kind of pleasure, and he wanted to be the one to take Felix apart.

Felix’s thrusts had turned even more careful. They were shallow and controlled and not at all what Antony wanted. He dropped his eyes from his partner’s face and saw that Felix’s fingers were covered with Antony’s spend. He reached down, grabbed Felix’s wrist, and drew the sticky fingers to his mouth, where he sucked them clean.

Thanks to the curse, it just tasted like ashes. But his little show had the desired effect. Felix growled, slammed his hips up in a few punishing strokes, then went silent and rigid as he came.

“Why do you think we can still do that?” Felix mused a few minutes later as Antony cuddled drowsily against the great bulk of him. “Our hearts don’t beat. What pushes the blood around?”

It was hardly a new concern, and there were a number of theories. Antony thought the most convincing of them was the idea that all the magic they had once been capable of was now employed in keeping their bodies working. It would also explain why they needed to replenish with elf blood once a year. Still…

“That’s terrible pillow talk,” he grumbled. “You’re supposed to be telling me that I’m pretty and you had a wonderful time.”

Felix laughed. “You already know both of those things.”

“How should I know whether you had a good time?” Antony demanded. “I can’t read your mind!”

“After all these years?” Felix pulled him even closer and pressed a kiss to his hair. “Of course you can.”

He kept stroking Antony’s shoulder and side with his light, deliberate touches. And as Antony drifted off to sleep against Felix’s reassuring bulk, he couldn’t help but think that a little slowness now and then might not be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This was fun to write! I liked getting to explore Felix's more playful side that he's not really able to show with Eiji yet, and for Antony to finally have sexytimes with someone who isn't messing with his head. Thanks for reading! <3


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